HOUSTON—My first thought was that I should have rented a wider lens. Sitting in front of me was a vintage two-seat Douglas TA-4J Skyhawk, and this aircraft dominated the space. It loomed like a temporarily grounded raptor, simultaneously enormous and oddly toy-like. The Skyhawk sat poised on chocked gear with its nose cocked slightly upward, like it was ready to go, this very instant, decorate a jungle canopy with a long string of burning nape. A painted Playboy bunny perched impudently at the top of the empennage—the logo of Headquarters & Maintenance Squadron 11, based out of Danang, Vietnam.

No matter how far back I shuffled in the crowded hangar, I couldn’t quite fit the whole aircraft in frame. Let that be a lesson, would-be photographers: the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L is a hell of a lens, but sometimes, 24mm just isn’t wide enough.

Though it's the smallest jet we saw that day, the A-4's landing gear makes it stand tall in the hangar, towering above us.

One of the A-4's hard points, for mounting weapons or external stores.

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Detailing on the inner surface of the A-4's nose wheel door.

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The "jet" part of the jet—a dual-spool Pratt & Whitney J52 turbojet (non-afterburning).

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Livery detail on the nose.

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Four, on the floor

The Skyhawk—the first of four vintage jets I got to see this day—holds Bureau Number 153524 and first saw service in 1967 in "Fast FAC" missions over Vietnam (that is, "Forward Air Control" missions into "hot" areas). It is now the property of the Massachusetts-based Collings Foundation, an education nonprofit group that maintains a large number of historical aircraft from various eras. Several of the Foundation’s Vietnam-era aircraft are stabled in Ellington Field, southeast of Houston in Clear Lake and just a few miles away from the Johnson Space Center. The Foundation’s website features detailed write-ups on the provenance of each of its aircraft, including 153524, but my visit to the hangars in Ellington wasn’t an official Foundation activity—rather, it was the result of a personal request to professional pilot and family friend Rick Sharpe.

Sharpe might be a somewhat familiar name to Ars readers. A couple of years ago, he took me up in a Folland Gnat trainer for a quick acrobatic jaunt. At the time, he mentioned that he was busy working on several other jets, including a MiG-21, and invited me to come and see the aircraft when I had time.

Further Reading

As it turns out, Sharpe is a great fellow to know. He’s chief pilot for the Collings Foundation in Houston and for the World War II-focused Lone Star Flight Museum; he's also the president of the Vietnam War Flight Museum, which partners with the Collings Foundation and maintains its own stable of vintage aircraft (both display and flight-worthy). As we paced around the Skyhawk, Sharpe told us that the Collings Foundation and the Vietnam War Flight Museum together maintain the largest collection of flyable Vietnam-era aircraft in the world.

"It’s a beautiful aircraft to fly," Sharpe said as we stepped gingerly through the crowded hangar. Soon he talked us through the provenance of the A-4 (the Collings Foundation site has a detailed write-up of the aircraft’s history that is far more complete than anything I can provide). "But it is a delta wing airplane. It flies under power. If you pull the power off on landing, you’ll do it once—you won’t do it twice!" He continued giving us a quick lesson in aerodynamics and physics: the small wing area made the A-4 well-suited for service on an aircraft carrier, where hangar and deck space is at a premium, but it comes with penalties to the flight characteristics. In particular, a delta wing shape like the A-4 comes with a lot of drag, which means you need a lot of thrust to keep the wings generating lift.

Enlarge/ Ah, there we go. I'm able to get the whole thing in frame after opening the hangar doors and stepping outside.

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"How many hours do you have on this particular aircraft?" I asked.

"Oh, I haven’t got that many in this one," Sharpe said modestly. "I’ve just got maybe about 50 hours in this aircraft."

Sharpe is a tall fellow, a silver-haired aviator with a ready smile who radiates a feeling of confidence and presence. He’s clearly in his element as he points out the aircraft’s features in a tour guide’s voice flavored with a bit of Texas twang. He knows what he’s doing because he’s been flying for longer than I’ve been alive—Sharpe went through flight training courtesy of the Navy in January 1976. When we ask how many aircraft he’s qualified in, he pauses for a moment and looks at the ceiling. "Um—I flew the T-33s, the Venom, the Vampire, the Casa, the Fouga, the F-86, the F-100, the A-4, the MiG-21, MiG-17, MiG-15…" He doesn’t mention the Folland Gnat I rode in, nor the Hawker and Citation jets he flies professionally for the aircraft management company he runs as a day job, nor the Huey and Cobra helicopters he gets to tool around in at the Vietnam War Flight Museum.

We’ve got the hangar to ourselves on this mid-week early morning, and Sharpe lets us climb up into the A-4’s dual cockpit. There are dual controls, front and rear, and the rear seat would be occupied by either the instructor-pilot if the aircraft was on a training flight or by the forward air controller if the aircraft was flying a "Fast FAC" sortie. I step gingerly over the side and onto the seat and then lower myself into the cockpit. I feel like a banana being dressed back up in its peel—the fit is extremely snug. It’s obvious, sitting in the tight space, why pilots sometimes refer to the belting-in process as "strapping on the aircraft." It smells of oil, hydraulic fluid, fuel, and old canvas—it smells, I think, like war. It’s difficult to wedge my camera into the cockpit at an angle where I can get any of the instruments in frame and focused. Once again, I wish for that wider lens.

Standing on the access ladder just outside the Skyhawk's snug forward cockpit. In background is pilot Rick Sharpe (right) and my dad (left).

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Closer view of the primary instrument panel in the forward cockpit. According to Sharpe, the side panels can be difficult to reach once you're actually in the cockpit: "You wind up setting all of your side panel stuff before you get into the cockpit—I do, at least," he explained.

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Trying to emulate close to a pilot's POV in the front cockpit.

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Right instrument panel, with comms and environmental controls. The A-4 has no battery—it is an "AC-only" aircraft—so there's not much of an electrical system management workload as there is in other jets.

Next to the A-4 sat the Collings Foundation's UH-1E Iroquois helicopter.

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Detail on the Huey's rotor assembly.

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Sharpe tells me it’s OK to move the controls, so I push down on the rudder pedals. The force required to budge them is tremendous. I grunt, and he laughs. "The aircraft can actually be flown in manual reversion mode—you can actually fly the airplane without hydraulics. Whereas with the F-100, if you lose the hydraulics, you’re done."

Before we leave the A-4 to walk to the next aircraft, I ask him about power and thrust. The A-4 lacks an afterburner, but its dual-spool Pratt & Whitney J52 turbojet makes 9,600 lbs of thrust (about 42 kN), giving the approximately 11,000 lb (about 5,000kg) aircraft an extremely zippy thrust-to-weight ratio. "It’s got awesome acceleration," he said with a smile. "But the A-4 doesn’t have a flying tail—it’s got a conventional elevator, so it’s kind of like the MiG-17. It’s considered a transonic aircraft. Could they go supersonic? Yeah. Would you like it? No. You’re gonna lose some elevator control. It doesn’t have any q-gearing or the things that make a supersonic aircraft handle well in the high transonic range."

Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Lee_Ars

I suspect the maintainability of jet warbirds is going to hinge heavily on if any are still in service. The A-4 is also used by companies like Discovery Air Defence Services* that provide training services to militaries.

Of course, those services themselves pick their fleet with an eye on cost of operation and maintainability, so there's a vicious cycle where only the designs where parts are the most available and operating costs the lowest keep flying.

*DADS also operates ex-Luftwaffe Alpha Jets and are supposed to be procuring early model ex-Israeli F-16s. Needless to say, if it took an Act of Congress to get the F-4 into private (not licensed commercial) hands, the F-16 would probably be even more difficult.

When I was a grad student, in the late 70s, I worked a couple of summers at DEC's Westfield, MA plant, which was next door to Barnes ANG field. They flew F-100s out of there, and I used to see them regularly.

But the best day, was when I arrived in the parking lot, got out of my car, and heard a couple of engines spooling up. I thought i'd stick around and see who was flying. It turned out to be a couple of F-4s, who took off, on afterburner, in formation. Pretty much right over my head. Even with my fingers buried in my ears, i could feel the sound waves all over my body. Impressive, to say the least.

The Fishbed was always prettiest in its most basic, single-seat configuration. Minimalist designs never look good once you start tacking things onto them. Not just extra seats, but they tried to fix its short legs by adding conformal fuel tanks all over the damned thing.

Thanks, Lee, for another great article about aeronautics. The photos are great! Is your camera fitted with APS-C sensor, or full-frame? I'm only asking because as you most certainly know, it impacts the designated focal length. (I often use my smartphone for wide-angle shots.)

I miss the days before 9/11 when Ellington Fields was more 'open.' Back in the day, I would bring my kids on many Saturday mornings to witness take-offs by the Air National Guard F-16's.

The Fishbed was always prettiest in its most basic, single-seat configuration. Minimalist designs never look good once you start tacking things onto them. Not just extra seats, but they tried to fix its short legs by adding conformal fuel tanks all over the damned thing.

Some of the best-looking members of the Fishbed family are the last ones built - the last J-7s from Chengdu use a bigger double-delta wing, and for whatever reason, most of the Chinese side of the family tree don't have the dorsal hump that the Soviets added to the design (post Sino-Soviet split)

Thanks, Lee, for another great article about aeronautics. The photos are great! Is your camera fitted with APS-C sensor, or full-frame? I'm only asking because as you most certainly know, it impacts the designated focal length. (I often use my smartphone for wide-angle shots.)

I used my 5D Mark 3, so full-frame. I had a whole bag full of different lenses (I'd rented several), but wound up keeping the 24-70mm f/2.8L USM II on for the whole time. Most shots were done with an on-camera speedlight, and for a few shots I set up a few off-camera speedlights. Several of the MiG shots were done with a longer exposure on a tripod and no flash.

It's meant to be eye friendly, to facilitate eye adjustment between looking outside the cockpit and looking inside the cockpit. They obviously like it, because they're still using it.

They used to paint commercial/industrial interiors weird hues of green and blue because they thought it reduced eyestrain. Turns out it's just really ugly without having much if any effect on eyestrain. Now they mainly use bland/neutral colors like you'd see in any typical office environment.

Handsome fellow, handsome planes. Very cool and informative article. A pity it's so hard/expensive to get new pilots but I can understand the need to be sure they're qualified given each of the planes talked about seem to have their own quirks.

Part of me is "Wow, that's an amazing collection and very impressive dedication!" and part of me is "Wow, that's a tremendous waste of money!"

The comparison is made to old tractors, but...Tractors from 1950 (even 1920 if you don't need 3point) can still plow and work, parts are easily available, and any idiot can maintain them with a large wrench and mallet. Often, they are cheaper to buy and maintain than modern tractors.

By contrast, these warbirds are all from the height of overbuilt/inefficient mid-century technology. It's sorta like a collection of old Pontiac station wagons, perhaps with slightly lower fuel costs.

I suspect the maintainability of jet warbirds is going to hinge heavily on if any are still in service. The A-4 is also used by companies like Discovery Air Defence Services* that provide training services to militaries.

Of course, those services themselves pick their fleet with an eye on cost of operation and maintainability, so there's a vicious cycle where only the designs where parts are the most available and operating costs the lowest keep flying.

*DADS also operates ex-Luftwaffe Alpha Jets and are supposed to be procuring early model ex-Israeli F-16s. Needless to say, if it took an Act of Congress to get the F-4 into private (not licensed commercial) hands, the F-16 would probably be even more difficult.

Awesome article, fantastic pictures. 1 nit to pick. As a Tucsonan living in exile in Europe, I have to point out the spelling error. I grew up about a mile away from the bone yard at Davis-MonthaN afb not Davis-MonthaM... check the spelling it's wrong in a couple of places.

Since it's so difficult/expensive to get rated in these planes, I wonder what's the possibility of using a simulator to replace some of the required hours? I don't know what the FAA's requirements are, other than that I think some of that is allowed. An issue is that the simulator has to meet certain requirements, including full replication of instrumentation. Building a simulator for such use might be a labor of love, kind of like the volunteers restoring and maintaining old war planes to flight status.

Since it's so difficult/expensive to get rated in these planes, I wonder what's the possibility of using a simulator to replace some of the required hours? I don't know what the FAA's requirements are, other than that I think some of that is allowed. An issue is that the simulator has to meet certain requirements, including full replication of instrumentation. Building a simulator for such use might be a labor of love, kind of like the volunteers restoring and maintaining old war planes to flight status.

Pretty complicated topic but the short version is that a simulator for this level of aircraft would certainly be more expensive to build and maintain than several of the aircraft. Also simulators are primarily used for maintaining currency not for most of the initial type ratings. I am not aware that any simulators were built or used for this era military aircraft.

Thanks, Lee, for another great article about aeronautics. The photos are great! Is your camera fitted with APS-C sensor, or full-frame? I'm only asking because as you most certainly know, it impacts the designated focal length. (I often use my smartphone for wide-angle shots.)

I used my 5D Mark 3, so full-frame. I had a whole bag full of different lenses (I'd rented several), but wound up keeping the 24-70mm f/2.8L USM II on for the whole time. Most shots were done with an on-camera speedlight, and for a few shots I set up a few off-camera speedlights. Several of the MiG shots were done with a longer exposure on a tripod and no flash.

I should have rented either a 14mm prime or that 11-24 USM zoom.

Another thing to bring next time is some gels for the flashes. The natural lighting in the hanger appears very warm, so the daylight-balanced flash clashes with it drastically.

The solution is to bring a warm-colored sheet to put on the flash head (a "gel") and then set the camera to a warm white balance. That way your lighting will mesh well with the natural lighting, so the areas your flash does not light will still look natural and not super yellow.